Star Wars Episode IX

[71 dB]

You are aware that if Lucas would have had his way, Star Wars would have been very very different (and consequently, worse) than what it turned out to be? The actors and the crew constantly challenged his ideas and complained about woody dialogue and directing. Lawrence Kasdan also improved greatly both Star Wars lore and Raiders of the lost ark and also Spielberg must be given way more credit with Indiana Jones than Lucas. As with both Star Wars and Indiana Jones, Lucas may have had the original idea which started the franchises which even then turned out to be way different from the films that eventually were made but Lucas hardly had anything to do with either Star Wars or Indiana Jones that the public knows and loves today. If he'd had, they had all been awful.

You can say this about any movie maker. Everybody has their weaknesses. Somehow Star Wars and Indiana Jones became massive icons of popular culture despite of Lucas's involment while non-Lucas productions struggle to do that same, just look at what Disney has done. Lucas is a genius, a visionary who has changed cinema a lot. It's pointless to try to downplay his role in cinema history.

[jess]

A transfer of the laserdisc edition was made available as a bonus to this edition of the dvd:



https://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Episode-IV-Limited/dp/B000FQJAIW

prices seem quite reasonable

Well, it's pretty dreadful. Definitely a poor effort at presenting us with the so-called 'theatrical' release (wrong aspect ratio, i believe) compared to Harmy's De-Specialised which is in glorious HD and removes all the changes made to it in subsequent releases.

[SimonNZ]

Well, it's pretty dreadful. Definitely a poor effort at presenting us with the so-called 'theatrical' release (wrong aspect ratio, i believe) compared to Harmy's De-Specialised which is in glorious HD and removes all the changes made to it in subsequent releases.

True, all they did was transfer from one format to another, which creates some problems with the special effects for reasons I don't understand, most noticeably in the area of black square around spaceships etc being a different shade to the black of the surrounding space.

[Mirror Image]

Your laserdiscs still play?

Decades ago when the format was almost dead I bough a player on eBay for $20, as well as a few laserdiscs. I wanted to watch the Karajan/Rheingold, which wasn't on DVD at the time. I also got a few other discs, maybe a Star Wars film. But it was an analog system and it seemed like some of the discs had deteriorated. There was something called disc rot(?).

Yep or, at least, as far as I know they do. I haven't played any of them in a couple of years, but I did get The Empire Strikes Back out to look at it and it seems fine to me. No signs of deterioration.

[Mirror Image]

Well, good to know that I lack critical thinking skills... Once again, John, you refuse to get off your high horse and accept the fact that your opinion is not truth.

I never said or implied my opinion was the truth. But I think the part where I said people who like the new trilogy lack critical thinking skills can be taken as a joke as there are obviously many intelligent people who have enjoyed it. Anyway, there's no right or wrong answer when giving an opinion of a piece of music, art, film, etc. It's subjective, but I've spoken with many Star Wars fans from different age groups that have said they have been disappointed in the direction Disney is taking this franchise. Just because you don't agree with my opinion, doesn't mean it doesn't hold some water.

[greg]

Watched it today.
Entertaining stuff, mostly good for eye candy. Yeah, the story doesn't have much depth to it but I'm not looking for it in Star Wars.

That auditorium, though... would be the perfect place to play a death metal concert. Lol.

[Mirror Image]

I was thinking about going to see The Rise of Skywalker, but then I suddenly came to my senses.

[71 dB]

Entertaining stuff, mostly good for eye candy.

So is pretty much any $200 million flick with tons of effects in it. That's the problem. Star Wars should be something special and Disney has come a long way "despecializing" Star Wars.  Star Wars isn't any more special than Frozen or Jumanji movies. 

I have no problem with people liking/enjoying Disney Star Wars. Even I enjoy it here and there (the latter part of Rogue One for example is a cool prelude to Episode IV), but personally I want "Lucas touch" in my Star Wars, and Disney Star Wars doesn't give much of that, does it? Instead of Jar Jar Binks they give you Mary Sue.

Since George Lucas is nowadays a bitter (thanks to those who hated the prequels) man (betrayed by Kathleen Kennedy and Bob Iger) who makes movies only for himself (and close friends to see) and having other kind of cultural interests (museum of contemporary art) I have to find new movie makers to discover things that are interesting to me. In the recent years I have explored some directors such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder and David Cronenberg. I have developped an affection to the movies of the 70's and 80's while becomming distanced of 21st century cinema. In other words I am getting old. 

[greg]

I have developped an affection to the movies of the 70's and 80's while becomming distanced of 21st century cinema. In other words I am getting old.

That's great and all, but couldn't movies be remade exactly the same but with better picture quality? Today we have 4k seems like we should be able to enjoy classic stuff with better image quality.

What I mean is, do a remake with similar actors, exact same script, exact everything as much as possible. I've played a few games that were remade with just updated graphics and nothing else (Spyro and Crash Bandicoot trilogies) so seems like it should be possible with everything but the same actors.

[71 dB]

That's great and all, but couldn't movies be remade exactly the same but with better picture quality? Today we have 4k seems like we should be able to enjoy classic stuff with better image quality.

What I mean is, do a remake with similar actors, exact same script, exact everything as much as possible. I've played a few games that were remade with just updated graphics and nothing else (Spyro and Crash Bandicoot trilogies) so seems like it should be possible with everything but the same actors.

Well, 2K (Blu-ray) is enough picture quality for me and I believe many older movies are available on 4K. I don't see the point of remaking movies just to improve picture quality as you can have pristine 4K picture of old movies restoring and transfering them carefully. Not cheap, but much cheaper than remakes.

Soon it might be possible to have older tv-shows shot on SD video upscaled to HD convincingly using AI. We already have that for pictures and it shouldn't be impossible to teach AI to render natural looking HD video from SD video.

[Ratliff]

That's great and all, but couldn't movies be remade exactly the same but with better picture quality? Today we have 4k seems like we should be able to enjoy classic stuff with better image quality.

Motion pictures shot on 35mm or 70mm film have sufficient resolution to justify a hi-res transfer.

And the thought that the resources necessary to make a movie would be devoted to rote mimicry of an old film is just depressing.

What I mean is, do a remake with similar actors, exact same script, exact everything as much as possible. I've played a few games that were remade with just updated graphics and nothing else (Spyro and Crash Bandicoot trilogies) so seems like it should be possible with everything but the same actors.

Movies are made with human beings. Upgrading graphics resolution on a video game and re-making a movie are not analogous processes.

[SimonNZ]

Instead of Jar Jar Binks they give you Mary Sue.

You think JarJar a more interesting character than Rey? And an example of Lucas genius??

[71 dB]

You think JarJar a more interesting character than Rey? And an example of Lucas genius??

Yes and yes.

[greg]

Motion pictures shot on 35mm or 70mm film have sufficient resolution to justify a hi-res transfer.

Does this mean it's possible to upscale the old Star Wars movies to 4K then? (i don't know what type of film was used for those movies)

[Rinaldo]

Does this mean it's possible to upscale the old Star Wars movies to 4K then? (i don't know what type of film was used for those movies)

You don't have to upscale anything, there's enough 'data' in the original film.

[Ratliff]

You don't have to upscale anything, there's enough 'data' in the original film.

That is correct. The original negative is 35 mm, and that is roughly equivalent in resolution to 4k video.  They just have to do the transfer with hi-rez equipment. The same would be true of any major theatrical release.  However, for Star Wars it is a moot point, since Lukas refuses to release the original Star Wars films in any format.

It was interesting to see the blue-ray release of the original Star Trek. Those were produced using 35mm film but the special effects were done using video equipment at convention television resolution. So you see an perfectly sharp picture, with visibly lower resolution special effects superimposed. It is also somewhat awkward, because at high resolution you can see how shabby the sets were, since the were only supposed to look good on standard television resolution.

[SimonNZ]

That is correct. The original negative is 35 mm, and that is roughly equivalent in resolution to 4k video.  They just have to do the transfer with hi-rez equipment. The same would be true of any major theatrical release.  However, for Star Wars it is a moot point, since Lukas refuses to release the original Star Wars films in any format.

It was interesting to see the blue-ray release of the original Star Trek. Those were produced using 35mm film but the special effects were done using video equipment at convention television resolution. So you see an perfectly sharp picture, with visibly lower resolution special effects superimposed. It is also somewhat awkward, because at high resolution you can see how shabby the sets were, since the were only supposed to look good on standard television resolution.

The story I heard is that he cant now because he canibalised all the original masters making the ruined versions.

The main US hall-of-famish film archive - I cant remember its name - requested the inclusion of Star Wars, he sent them RV, they sent it back saying it was '77 that was the classic and he said it was no longer available and he couldn't recreate it anymore.

[Ratliff]

The Star Wars wikipedia page describes something similar, they originally made composite negatives from different types of film stock that had to be separated and cleaned, and subsequently re-composited digitally with new special effects. Gives the impression that re-creating the original would have been possible but a huge ordeal, comparable to producing the special edition. They do mention that the national film archive has a print of the original theatrical release that they have digitized at hi-rez and which can be viewed by appointment.

The only release to the public on DVD was that special edition, which was transferred from a low resolution non-anamorphic laser disc, probably deliberately chosen to make the new edition seem a great improvement. Even if they weren't prepared to go back to the original negatives, a hi-rez transfer from a theatrical print would probably have satisfied everyone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_(film)